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During the period December 2013 to April 2018, we estimate that 1 177 600 deaths due to any cause occurred among people living in South Sudan, and that 794 600 deaths would have occurred under counterfactual assumptions. This yields an excess death toll of 382 900.

….. The first is that the researchers use different variables as proxies for mortality: proxies such as rainfall, climate, how much food is grown, the price of food (measured as “amount in kilogrammes of white flour that an average medium goat can be exchanged for”) and the presence of disease. This is how it works: if there is low rainfall, they know that people will struggle to get water and grow crops, so deaths are likely to go up. Using data from all around the world, they can make an ­educated guess about how many deaths were caused by a specific deficit of rainfall.

These proxies are combined with the limited survey data available to give an overall death toll for South Sudan in the relevant period. But the war didn’t cause all those deaths. It didn’t even cause most of them. Many deaths can be attributed to old age and natural causes; others to poverty and diseases such as malaria that would have happened regardless of the conflict.

Inside China’s government, differences have emerged about how to use the military overseas, said people familiar with the discussions. The prevailing view in the foreign ministry, they said, is that China should rapidly expand peacekeeping activities to show global leadership, as Mr. Xi demands.

Many military commanders, they said, by contrast want to move more slowly, conscious of their troops’ lack of experience and sensitive to domestic and international criticism.

China’s foreign ministry declined to comment. A senior defense official denied there were differences within the government.

The tragedy speaks to a pillar of Mr. Xi’s political agenda. Last year, he pledged to build an 8,000-strong standby peacekeeping force, adding to 2,600 Chinese deployed today. China is the second-biggest funder of U.N. peacekeeping after the U.S. and the biggest troop provider of the five permanent Security Council members. U.N. insiders said China is lobbying for one of its officials to head the U.N. peacekeeping office next year.

This is the all-important paragraph:

One of Mr. Xi’s goals is to protect the nation’s expanding global interests and citizens abroad. China’s leaders were “stunned” by the deaths in Juba, said one senior Western diplomat involved in discussions with China on South Sudan. “They’re fast realizing you cannot be a commercial giant without being an imperial power in some way.”

If China follows through on Xi’s dreams, will Chinese interventions and state-building efforts be any different than what the EU and the US are already doing? Does China really believe that an 8,000 strong standby force will be enough (even just for South Sudan)?

Also, this anecdote suggests that China will need to build a robust pension system before it can deploy large numbers of troops in dangerous hotspots abroad:

The cohort comprises mostly children raised under China’s one-child policy, so fatalities are likely to leave parents with no one to support them in old age.

How do President Kiir’s children afford to live in such apparent luxury? Corporate records for Combined Holding Limited (CHL), a South Sudanese holding company incorporated in February 2016, provide one clue. These records reveal basic information about the company: the date of incorporation, names of shareholders, their contact information and a copy of their passport. One of CHL’s shareholders is a 12- year-old child with the surnames “Salva Kiir Mayardit” whose passport lists his occupation as “Son of President.” But, this hardly makes this child unique among members of President Kiir’s immediate family.

In total, The Sentry found that at least seven of President Kiir’s children have held stakes in a wide range of business ventures, especially in the extractive and financial sectors. Corporate filings obtained by The Sentry show that South Sudan’s first family appears to be active in the country’s oil and mining industries. Another document obtained by The Sentry, dated June 26, 2015, indicates that Thiik Kiir—the president’s 28-year-old son—owned 35 percent of Nile Link Petroleum. Adocument filed in 2014 lists Mayar Kiir—Thiik’s 29-year-old brother whose passport also confirms he is the president’s son—as owner of half of Oil Line & Hydrocarbons Limited, with the remaining shares held by three Kenyan businessmen.

A document dated May 25, 2015, lists Mayar Kiir as a 50 percent shareholder in Specialist Services Co. Ltd., a company that describes itself as being involved in “oilfield services and petroleum supply.” Another document indicates that Adut Salva Mayar, the president’s daughter, has owned shares of Rocky Mining Industries Limited. Yet another document reports that Anok Kiir, President Kiir’s 29- year-old daughter, has held a 45 percent stake in CPA Petroleum. And, according to another corporate record, Winnie Salva Kiir, the president’s 20-year-old daughter, held an 11 percent stake in Fortune Minerals & Construction. The same document indicates that, as of March 2016, the three largest shareholders of Fortune Minerals are Chinese investors.

You’d be interested to know that Salva Kiir and Riek Machar live only a short drive from each other in Nairobi, Kenya.

The idea that the leaders of South Sudan are stealing state resources left, right, and centre is totally abhorrent. Tens of thousands have died since the resumption of civil conflict. Millions are in dire need of humanitarian aid.

Which is why I think that it would be misguided to presume that the key problems with South Sudan are endemic corruption or the lack of “good governance.”

Should we really expect the president of a (struggling) oil producing 5-year old state to make $60,000 a year and not dip into state coffers once in a while? After all, Kiir’s *perceived* peers are likely not some low-level bureaucrats here in DC but other leaders of the world and the Davos crowd. This is not to say that if Kiir were paid more he would necessarily be less corrupt. The point is that I am not particularly shocked that Kiir and his collaborators in the pillaging of South Sudan want and have acquired the same material comforts that most leaders in the world have.

The historically inclined might even argue that this is South Sudan’s enclosure movement.

Perhaps one of the most important questions to ask about South Sudan is how the international community can help Kiir and his henchmen invest their (ill-gotten) wealth in Juba instead of Nairobi or Kampala.

If left alone, South Sudan will likely remain to be a runaway kleptocratic failed state instead of gradually moving towards a stable state with sufficient coercive powers.

The student of the political economy of institutions in me is somewhat convinced that horizontal intra-elite accountability is probably the best way out for South Sudan (if they can establish intra-elite political stability to begin with). The hope that vertical accountability through regular “free and fair” elections will help keep a globalized elite running a fractious post-conflict state honest and accountable is phantasmic. At the moment the domestic audience costs for engaging in corruption are very low for Kiir and other elites, and will likely stay that way for the foreseeable future.

And don’t even mention “political will.” There are no “good” leaders in the world. Just properly incentivized individuals.

Hong Kong police fired water cannon and volleys of tear gas to break up protesters throwing petrol bombs and bricks near the Legislative Council building and central government offices on Sunday, the latest in weeks of sometimes violent unrest.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group on Saturday attacked two plants at the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry in a strike that could impact about 5 million barrels per day of crude production - close to half of the kingdom's output, or 5% of global oil supply.